Outside
by surroundedbystars
Summary: In the wake of Chloe Price's murder, Max Caulfield finds herself suffering from horrifying nightmares and wandering the darkened, emptying halls of Blackwell Academy at night. Adrift in the world she created, Max feels herself guilty for sacrificing her Chloe. One dark, cold night, Max finds that is not alone after all. One shot written for Rowanred81's Writers' Secret Santa.


**The following is a work of fanfiction based around Dontnod Entertainment's Life is Strange. No claim of ownership is made and none is to be honoured. I own nothing.**

 **So this is a story all about how my life got turned… Sorry, I got my notes mixed up with my choir music. The following is a story that I wrote for mageofelgara as a part of Rowanred81's Christmas Secret Santa thingy. mageofelgara gave me a brief and I followed it. Sort of. Mostly.**

 **Outside is a post-episode 5 story, and I do take a Pricefield centric view of LIS, even though this is a Marshfield fic, so I would advise you that there is a suicide, assault, and death trigger warning on this.**

 **As can be inferred, I have issues with the Sacrifice Chloe Ending, and I really dislike Christmas (something which no doubt influenced my writing) so, going in, don't expect a happy story. In fact, this might be something to save until after the holiday period.**

 **(I'm sorry)**

 **Happy Holidays**

* * *

The butterfly floats in the cool evening wind, her silhouette easily visible against the orange autumn sun. It's comforting to see her, even in this form. At least she's free, though. Outside. She makes her way over the green grass, past her mother and step-father and sits on the polished to perfection wooden casket that houses what had been her body. Does she remember? I wonder. It doesn't matter, though. She's here. That's what's important.

I smile at her, and yet, something still feels missing from the world…

Change…

I'm not in the Arcadia Bay Cemetery anymore. Now I'm in Blackwell Academy's Art Room. It's weeks ago. I'm wearing my Jane Doe T-shirt.

There are three versions of this room. The first is the one that I can only imagine, the one ruined in the storm, the windows blown open and the ground strewn with debris. The desks thrown about like paper and the cabinets little more than piles of splinters. Ruins, remnants of a dead town destroyed in the name of love. The second is the one that I remember, the one that I saw this morning, the one that is empty. Deserted. The police having confiscated most of the camera equipment when they arrested Jefferson a few hours after Nathan killed Chloe. The third is the one in which I sit now, it's the one that led to everything, the one as it existed on the afternoon of Monday, 7th October 2013. Back when Mark Jefferson held court. Sometimes I visit the others, but this is the version that I visit most often. It's the one I created.

I used to enjoy being here, in this place, but now it's a nightmare given substance. A three-dimensional photograph that I keep returning to.

I've lost count of how many times I've been back here, now.

A hundred?

No, not that many. I'd know if it were that many… Surely it can't be that many. God, I sound pathetic. I am pathetic.

No, I'm not. I'm just… I don't know. I don't know what the hell I am at this point.

Saviour?

Murderer?

Probably both, but who knows… Chloe would, if she were here… Chloe would say the right thing and everything would be better, even if it were terrible. Or maybe she'd give me something to do, something to think about and take my mind off the situation… I could use that right about now…

No, I can't think about that. Not now. I've got to move on, right?

Gotta let go.

So I settle back into the reality as it exists in front of me. Passingly, it looks like my old life: Kate sitting by herself, Victoria acting as though the sun shines out her ass, Jefferson lecturing the class, acting as though he were a prince. It's sickening.

As happened last time, Victoria's new phone rings and my old camera falls to the floor. It shatters and I look down at the broken glass, tiny plastic shards and tiny pieces of metal lying next to my left foot. I look up to see the room deserted of everyone but Jefferson. The table where he sat replaced with a church's pulpit.

He stands behind it, his hand raised in the air.

"Once upon a time, in an imaginary place called Russia, there was a soldier in the service of the Tsar," Jefferson says. "This soldier served his lord for thirty years and won him many battles, but eventually, the soldier left the Tsar's army and walked around Russia."

He speaks as though he's delivering one of his lectures, the kind that I left Seattle to attend. I can't interrupt him, I can't speak. I can only sit, transfixed, like I'm watching a horror film.

"…And one day, the old soldier encountered a blind beggar on the streets of Novgorod. The soldier, being the virtuous man that he was, gave the beggar all his money. The beggar, now no longer actually begging, was quite alarmed, and so he said that the soldier could have anything that his heart desired. The soldier refused, but the beggar insisted and gifted the soldier with a playing card to remember him by and a cloth sack.

The beggar said, 'Whenever you want to catch something, whether it be man, immortal, or beast, simply ask the fiend to get into the sack and it will and you can do with it whatever you will.'

The soldier thanked the old beggar and went onwards, to the Military Engineering-Technical University in St. Petersburg. I guess he wanted to get his GED or something. But when the soldier got there he found it infested with demons, so he trapped them in the sack… Max, are you listening to me?"

I look up at Jefferson. Now, we're sitting in Chloe's house – the other Chloe's house, the one that I… I guess I killed both of them, now. I'm sitting at the kitchen table. Williams' bills piled up in front of me next to a shopping list that ends with "Joyce's cigarettes." Jefferson stands in front of the fireplace with his hand over the butterfly graffiti that I created. He admires the painting.

"What do you think?" he says.

I don't reply.

"Not feeling talkative? Fine. To be honest, I don't really want to talk to you either, Max. I'm practically reading this story to you off a script… I'd much rather just be dead. You want to know what it's like? Of course you do. You want to know all about it. But I'm not going to tell you, you're just going to have to learn about it yourself. Don't worry, it won't be long now. I'm going to continue talking about this painting, if you don't mind… I'd say that it's Dada, but it's too normal to be Dada. Too… pastiche. Bourgeois. It's like something you'd see in a drunken frat boy's bathroom. Hmnn… That's all well and good, but the problem, you see, is that it's too shit to be anything else."

He turns to me.

"Are you making notes on this, Max? It's going to be on the test later. Fine. I'll put my notes on Blackboard later. We're not really here to criticize the late William Price's taste in art work, are we? We're here to be a part of a story. Come on."

He walks past me, and I stand up to follow him. We've changed places again.

It's 2008, and I'm in my 14-year-old body. We're still in the Price Household, and judging by the look of the house, it's the day William Price died. Jefferson is wearing William's clothes. Far too big for such a small man, they hang off his thin, spiderlike frame like shower curtains on rails.

Chloe has a still-wet stain on her sweater. It's blood, her blood.

"I get to break the eggs," she says.

Jefferson smirks at me and then turns to Chloe. "Of course you do, sweetheart."

Bastard, I think. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Now, from this moment forward, until the end of time. Fuck you, Jefferson.

"So where were we, Max?" Jefferson says as he turns back towards me. "Oh yeah… _The Soldier and Death_. So, this old soldier released the demons in the wild, far away from the university and St Petersburg, and in exchange, the demons gave the soldier a piece of glass. They say that with the piece of glass the soldier could predict the movements of Death."

He chuckles and turns towards the cabinets where the Price's used to keep the cereal. He opens them and frowns. "They said that when somebody was sick simply look at the person through the piece of glass. If Death is standing near the person's foot then Death is going to come close to the person, but isn't actually going to collect them. But if Death is rubbing their head, the demons said, then Death herself will soon come to collect the person's soul…"

He chuckles and closes the cabinets. "Shit, we're out of Morphine. Max, could you please go get us some from the garage?"

I turn away from him and Chloe and make my way through the living room, towards the garage. Somehow the walls have been covered in Jefferson's photographs, both the ones that he took outside the dark room and the ones he took inside. My heart races as I march through the living room, through those horrible, horrible images. I open the door and walk through and find myself at the cliff side.

It's raining, and I can see the storm on the horizon. Harsh wind pushes against my face and body. It pulls my hair up. There's a coffin where me and Chloe stood just before… just before it happened. Jefferson is standing on the coffin, hands behind his back and with a self-satisfied look on his face.

He leaps off the coffin and lands in front of me. It's weird; he's not moving like I remember him moving. This Jefferson walks like a revenant, or like an actor in a play. Every movement is overdramatized.

Why is he doing this? I wonder.

"So," he says. "One day, after many years wandering, a messenger approaches the soldier and says that word has spread of the soldiers' abilities. The Tsar himself has become deathly ill and the soldier is needed at court at once. So he goes."

"So the soldier goes to court and does his thing and, lo and behold, there is Death standing on the Tsar's shoulder, like a pirate's pet parrot… Ha! I kill me… When Madsen isn't doing it, of course."

Jefferson wraps his fingers under the coffin's lid and thrusts it open. I blink and we're in the other Chloe's bedroom, the one that used to be the garage. The alternate. Jefferson is lying in Chloe's bed, his arms bound like hers, and there's a tube in his throat. There's that picture of Kate on the computer screen, and the things on the notice board have been changed, warped by the nightmare.

"I'm curious, Max," he says. "In that situation, when someone you've pledged yourself to is in danger, close to death, and they ask for your help, what would you do?"

I wonder what to say, but I don't reply. I can't reply. I remember what I did in that situation; I did as was asked of me, and that got me here… That got Chloe where she is.

Fuck you, Jefferson.

"What's that? Cat got your tongue?" he says. "That's fine. While you're thinking of what you'd do, I'll continue my story."

Once again, the location changes. This time we're in The Dark Room, and I am the one immobile. I'm sitting, caught, bound to the chair facing the camera and the couch – just like I was last time. Jefferson sits in the couch across the way, whiskey in hand. Pretentious, transcendental Jazz plays in the background and makes me long for the days of my grandpa's Sun Ra collection.

Jefferson takes a sip from his whiskey, smiles and holds his glass as if offering a toast. "Days pass as they wait for Death to make her decision, Max. The entire court, including the soldier, sit there in silence. It's so silent in the Imperial Palace that you can hear a pin drop, and this goes on for days. Envoys are sent out in silence, a line of succession is drawn up, family members in the other European nations are informed. The Russian people know that the end is very near. Suddenly, though, one day the soldier stands up, goes to the Tsar's bedside, and asks death to take him instead. Death agrees, the Tsar gets better and the soldier gets ill. The whole court celebrates, but the soldier is close to death. The Tsar knows what the soldier has done for him, though, and so has the soldier billeted in the imperial palace, under the auspices of the finest doctors in Europe. More days pass. The soldier grows weaker and weaker until Death appeared to him. And so the soldier pulled off his invisibility cloak and walked off arm and arm with Death as old…"

Jefferson throws the glass against the metal closet and it shatters with a loud and sudden screech. He turns to me, chuckles and stands up.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he says. "That was a different story, a fairy tale with a happy ending. Nothing to do with real life."

He strides towards me.

"You see, in the real world, what happened is that when Death approached the old soldier, and the old soldier asked Death to lean closer. Death, seeing the old soldier as a great adversary, did so. She leaned in for the kill."

Jefferson rubs his hand across my face.

"The old soldier asked Death if she knew what was in the soldier's hand. Death looked down and said that she did.

'It's a sack,' she said, confused.

The old soldier smiled and said, 'Well, if it's a sack, then get into it!'

And she did so, Max. And the soldier was no longer dying. And so he walked off with Death in hand, slung over his back like a camera case, convinced that he had done the right thing. But he hadn't, Max. Oh no. When the soldier went to throw away the sack, he couldn't, and when he tried to use the shard of glass to look for her, he couldn't see her. You see, by taking Death, the old soldier had cursed himself. Cursed with guilt… Cursed with sin. Call it what you will, Max, but what the old soldier did, he did, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had to live with it, the fact that he had removed the magic from his world."

We're nowhere now. It might be that place from the other timeline, that nightmare, it might not. I don't know. The lighthouse is in the background, but I can't see a way to get to it. There's no path anymore. No me, no Chloe. There's just here: just me, Jefferson, and the spot light that shines down on us that binds us together and defines this space. Us, together, alone in eternity.

"And that, you see, reminds me a little of you, of what you did…"

He turns away from me and walks into the darkness until he's invisible. I can still hear him, though.

"You had this connection to Chloe Price, right? This extraordinary friendship that was starting… Hell, let's sink that ship… It was a romantic relationship. It had a future. You know it had a future. In that timeline where you won my little competition, you could see that future. And yet you sacrificed Chloe. You killed her. Hell, Max, you killed her twice. Twice! That's one more times that I killed her! First in that other place, that alternative reality, and then in the girls' bathroom. You saved the town, but you killed Chloe."

"I didn't kill Chloe," I say, finally managing. "I… I didn't kill her. Nathan killed her."

"But you let it happen. You didn't pull the fire alarm when you had the chance."

"I couldn't… I had to save the town. I had to save everyone. I couldn't let my meddling in the timeline kill all those people. Chloe didn't want to… Chloe wanted to save her mom."

"And Joyce is so saved now, isn't she? Husband dead… Daughter dead. What a life Joyce Madsen lives! What joy! She quit her job at Two Whales, I heard. Now she just putters around that house of hers, sitting quietly in Chloe's room, wondering where it all went wrong. Sometimes she goes to visit Chloe…"

"I had to save everyone!" I shout. "I had to save Kate, and Warren, and Victoria, and Dana, and I had to get Nathan some help! I had to get justice for Rachel Amber!"

Chuckling. It's not Jefferson's chuckle, it's a girl's. It continues, echoing in the darkness, getting louder and louder, like the universe is laughing at some big cosmic joke. Suddenly, out of the darkness walks Rachel Amber, her skin grey and claylike, her hair straw-like and greasy. Her visible left eye dusty and lifeless. She smiles at me and brushes away her hair from her face, revealing a rotting right eye.

"Some justice, Max. All that just for Jefferson to off himself before the trial. Dead, but having never sat in judgement. Is that what you think Chloe would have wanted? Is that what you think I wanted?"

She chuckles.

I wake up.

* * *

I open my eyes to a darkened bedroom. The sounds of the last crickets chirping in the distance and cars in the distance and somebody's television and the occasional puff of wind howling against the dorm's old windows. Nearer, I can hear the low, near non-existent hum of my laptop. My phone lies on my nightstand, counting the hours away, next to a book titled _Russian Folk Tales_.

It's cold tonight, far colder than it has been. Summers gone away.

In the darkness, my wrist itches – I'm not used to Chloe's punk wristband yet. I scratch it, but that doesn't help. The itching sensation is replaced by an acute sensation of pins and needles.

Yet another thing I've failed at, I think as I turn over in bed.

I check my phone and I try to go back to sleep, to try to recover the rest of the night, but I can't. For an hour I toss and turn, trying not to think of anything, but it doesn't work. Every time I try to close my eyes and drift off to sleep, all I think about is what Jefferson said in that dream… If it really was a dream. Maybe it was another one of those visions, like the one I had just before the cliff… I thought that I was done with all of that stuff, that Chloe's sacrifice fixed everything. Maybe I'm still being punished for meddling in time and even Chloe's death didn't end it… Maybe the storm is still coming?

Fuck.

I think of the laptop on the desk, humming away to itself. I got the message before I went to bed. It wasn't the police or Principal Wells that told me that Jefferson was dead, it was the news. One of the local news website had a man on the inside and was reporting that Jefferson had killed himself, and I just threw myself into bed. A small part of me is glad that Jefferson is dead, but another part of me, the bigger part, knows that means that Jefferson has escaped justice. That isn't fair. It's not fair on me, on Kate, on Chloe, Rachel, or any of the other girls.

What kind of world lets that happen?

…The one that I created.

Fuck.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I have to get up. Again. I turn the bedside light on and pull the sheets off and drag my legs out of bed. A cold wind brushes against my ankles.

God, I think. Summer really has gone away. November 1st already… How many times has it been now? How many times have I gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to do this?

Probably just as many as the nights I never got into bed at all. Just as many as I spent lying awake, thinking, staring at the ceiling or at my phone, waiting for a phone call from Chloe. I think my other self must have shut down after the incident bathroom, even if she didn't know what was happening. During the transition, I saw that she spent a lot of her time in this room, or with Joyce and David. There weren't any signs of having tea with Kate, arguing with Victoria, going Ape, or talking with Dana. It seems like I… she… just shut down. I guess she must have, after finding out that the person who died was Chloe. I would have… I guess I did. People seem supportive, though. Especially after Chloe's funeral. I was surprised to see that Victoria, Warren, and Kate there. They didn't even know her, did they?

No, they didn't. That didn't change. I guess they just wanted to be supportive.

I look down at the framed photograph sitting on my bedside cabinet, the one of me and Chloe that we took when we were kids, the one where we look so much older. There are other photographs of me and Chloe together, some in boxes in my parents' apartment in Seattle, others at Joyce's house, but there aren't any of us together from the days that never came. None of the photographs that Joyce gave me, the ones sitting on my couch, depict anything that happened that week. There's no evidence of any of it. No proof that it happened at all. And despite what Chloe told me, I can't help but wonder if it did happen, now.

Did I really change anything or did I just play hop scotch into a new reality?

Do I jump realities or do I destroy them?

I look away from the photographs and turn towards the pile of clothes on my couch. I don't want to think about any of this, not now. It's too hot in here, too small. I need to get out. Be alone.

I grab my jeans left off my couch arm and slip them on over my night clothes and put my shoes on and head out into the howling night.

* * *

The corridor is quiet tonight. Empty. The icy chill in my bedroom just seems to have increased thrice-fold.

It's been weeks now since I've heard Dana blasting her music in the morning or Kate playing her violin. Even Brooke, who I had never really talked to before that week, has stopped flying her drone. Ms Grant quit, and Mr Madsen is still on leave. Principal Wells doesn't seem to come out of his office anymore. What few classes are still on are quiet and slow going.

According to Warren, or at least his Twitter feed, Blackwell is having funding problems now that Sean Prescott has been arrested by the IRS and the other investors pulled out after Nathan killed Chloe. No one wants to go near Blackwell or its murderous students.

It feels like the world is moving on…

I make my way down the corridor, down the stairway, and then out into the cold night. Like the rest of the school, it's quiet here. The fireflies have all disappeared, and the truckers seem to have headed south for the winter. I don't blame either, really. The people of Arcadia Bay are worth saving, but the town hasn't been healed. Maybe it can't be healed, maybe, Chloe or not, the town is just destined to go – either be destroyed in a hail of wind and fire or just fade away.

* * *

As I pass the place where, in another life, David Madsen harassed Kate and where Warren asked me to go ape with him, the wind howls, reminding me that whatever I think of the situation, I have no say in the matter. I never had any say in the matter.

Still, I can't help but think that maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe Arcadia Bay should be allowed to just fade away, like Chloe wanted.

Even without Chloe, I can still break into Blackwell easy enough. It's not hard, it's just not exactly ethical. I figure as long as I don't change anything then there's no debt that has to be paid for using my powers, so all it takes is for me to break the glass at the bottom of the doors in front of school and then for me to rewind. Easy as pie.

No funky weather yet.

The hallway is dark – hell, everything is dark – and quiet. Surprise! Pete, the temporary head of security while David is on leave, doesn't bother patrolling inside this building. I guess no one's told him that David isn't here at the moment, or maybe he just doesn't like the building?

I can't blame him, I hate this place, too. Especially at night. Blackwell Academy is an old school, and there are a lot of ghosts that patrol these halls. A lot of memories. During summer months, when there are fireflies and still sort of light late at night, it's not too bad, but now, it's hellish. A tomb.

The first time we… I... we… broke in, it was fun, and we had purpose. We were reckless, and we were the wild youth, but we were driven. Partners in crime and partners in time, solving a mystery… Finding love. Now there's nothing to it. Just wild, unfocussed rebellion for no other reason than to rebel. There's only me, now. Hell, I'm not even breaking in to do anything cool like taking pictures or stealing chairs. All I do when I come in here at night is just sit in the bathroom.

I bet Victoria would love that if she found…

No, that's not fair. Victoria can be horrible, but she's not a sadist. She went to Chloe's funeral, and she did open up during the week that never came, just before she won the Everyday Heroes content. Before Jefferson killed her…

I shouldn't judge Victoria. People don't understand what it's like, losing someone, until it happens. Chloe knew because it made her who she was, first William's death made her into a flame, and then Rachel's death turned her selfless. I know because of Chloe. Other people don't, I guess they can't, not unless they've experienced it themselves. I hope no one ever experiences this for themselves. Girl find out she can time travel, Girl saves Friend from murderous classmate, Girl falls in love with Friend, Girl changes universe, Girl changes universe back, Girl finds Friends' dead "It's complicated," Friend dies (again), Girl messes with reality (again) to save Friend, Girl tries to sort everything, Girl ends up sacrificing (Girl)friend.

It sounds like a plot of a bad early-noughties film, or maybe something done by David Lynch.

Who would believe any of that?

Who would understand?

Who could understand that I tried, again and again and again, to save Chloe and Rachel and Arcadia Bay? Who could understand that in the end, there was no way I could save Rachel and that it came down to a choice between Rachel and Arcadia Bay?

Who could understand that?

Chloe said that I was the only one who could make the choice that was thrust on me. Who does that to someone? Chooses them and makes them choose between the person they love most in the world and everyone else in the world? What kind of world lets someone do that?

Who could understand that in another life, on the cliff side, that there was a time, when a moment became an eternity, when I was going to do it and let Arcadia Bay burn. For Chloe. Not because of anyone else, but because it was what I wanted. She was… is… all that I want.

But I didn't do it, I didn't save her. I let her die and I didn't even have the strength to be with her in her last moments… I killed her, just like I did in the alternative reality. I killed her because she didn't want to live, because she thought that was what she deserved because she thought others deserved to live more than her, and I let her believe that.

And then then, at her funeral, I smiled. I smiled at that fucking butterfly. That… thing. That fucking monster that started this whole mess.

And what's worse?

Unless someone's playing a cruel, cruel joke on me, this is the best that I could have hoped for. This is it. This is all that I can do, and I still failed.

That's what they can't understand. That is how it feels like to be Maxine Caulfield. Forever…

* * *

Crying in the girls' bathroom. It's so cliché it could almost be a music video…

The bathroom floor is cold and wet. As well as the mop water, a night dew has settled. It's calm and sad. The room smells like bleach.

I'm sitting where I was during the Focus, my back against the stall and with my knees drawn up to my chest. Tears fall down my face like drops of rain down a window.

As I make my way inside, I make sure not to look at the floor, at the blood stain still on the floor. Even now I can't look, and yet I can't seem to leave this room. I used to be scared of getting stuck in time because of my powers, but now I know that really getting stuck in time happens regardless…

I saw a guy on TV describe time like a flat circle. He said that everything we've ever done we're going to do over and over. I didn't believe him, but the more often I do this, the more I realize he was right. I can't escape this place. This room. I'm going to be in this room, cowering, crying, listening to Chloe get shot again. And again. And again. Forever.

It's what I deserve, I guess… This is the room I created.

I hear the sound of footsteps coming from outside and a loud and resounding creak as the bathroom door opens.

Christ, I think. Has Pete finally changed his routine?

"Max? Are you in here?"

No, it's not Pete. It's Kate. I call out her name and she comes walking towards me. I can't see her, but I know she's there.

"Max?" she says. "Are you alright?"

Kate turns her phone light on and I can see her. She can see me. I wipe the tears off my face. "Yeah."

She smiles at me and then makes her way to the light switch. She turns it on and the room is bathed in a pale, blue-ish glow that can barely be called light.

This room is ugly. Full of hateful graffiti and dirty, it's not the place that anyone would want to be in. For me, it's like a cage, the room inside the room. It's a tiny piece of time that I can't seem to escape, even though I haven't made an effort to step inside it. It's the place where Chloe died…

I guess the one and only victory in all this is Kate. She's whole, now. Better. Like she was before everything. After everything came out about Jefferson, the police interviewed her and she met with a bunch of people. They got to her and helped her. I'm glad about that. Since I left the Focus, we haven't really spoke, though. I feel guilty about that.

She was so helpful during the funeral, being the rock that Joyce needed, and then afterward, when I saw her walking with David… It's funny but, despite everything, if you saw those two for the first time then, as they were walking, you'd assume they were friends. That's what's so great about Kate, her ability to let people in and be a comfort to people. Her infinite heart…

She sits down next to me and leans her head against the bathroom stall. I turn to her, and I wonder how she keeps all her hair in a bun.

She turns to me and smiles. It's warm and understanding, like the smile you get from a kindergarten teacher or an aunt whose caught you trying to steal cookies and is giving you a way out. It's warm and comforting. "What are you doing in here, Max?" she says.

But I don't want to talk. Kate is great, but she's still an intruder. So I turn away from her and stare out blankly.

"Sitting."

"Do you mind if I sit with you? I won't talk, Max. I'll just sit and make sure you're alright."

"I'm fine," I lie.

"Okay," she says. "I'll go then."

I wipe my face. "No… Don't. I'm sorry, Kate. It's fine," I say. "Stay. Please."

No one's ever caught me breaking in here before, and after everything, Kate would be the last person I'd expect to be skulking about the campus at night. To be honest, I thought she was in her room, already asleep.

We sit in silence for the longest time. I'm not complaining, though. After everything, it feels good to be with someone again. Even in silence there is empathy. Even in vacuum there is a heart.

"So," she says, finally.

"So…"

"What are you doing out here, Max?"

"I think you'll find that we're actually in here, Kate."

"You know what I mean, Max. It's way passed curfew."

"It's Friday."

"It doesn't matters, Max. Why did you break into the school?"

"Why did you follow me from the dorm?"

"I didn't. I was walking with Victoria and Dana and noticed you coming this way. I decided to follow you inside."

I wonder how she got in the school, but I don't ask. "You're friends with Victoria now?"

She seems taken back by that. I don't blame her, I don't know why I said it. She looks down and then smiles. "No," she says. "We were just out talking."

"And Dana?"

"She was there too…" Kate says. "Victoria isn't taking it well, Nathan… You know. She wanted to apologize for how she treated me, for letting Nathan… She said that she didn't know anything about what Nathan or Jefferson."

"She didn't."

"I know," Kate says. "Sheriff Cohen's been running the investigation. She told me."

"Yeah."

We settle into another, short and sweet silence before Kate turns to me again. She doesn't smile this time, though. "You knew Chloe really well."

"Yeah," I say. "I was… We were… She was the first person that really mattered to me that wasn't a relative."

"You loved her?"

I try to stop it, but another small tear falls down my cheek.

"Yeah," I say, my voice rough. "I did… I do… A lot… With all my heart."

"Max?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Kate. Please…"

"Max, I know that you don't want to talk about Chloe, but you need to let something out. Talking helps, it does. You can't internalize it."

"Go away, Kate."

"Max…"

"Fuck off," I say, still crying. "Fuck off, Kate."

"I have a half-brother."

I stop. What the fuck, Kate?

"What?"

"I shouldn't even know, but yeah, I have an older half-brother. His name is Frank Bowers, and he's a drug dealer. I shouldn't judge, and I don't, but my dad doesn't like what he does even though he goes to church every week. He knew Chloe, too… I hope they were friends." She smiles. "I'm sorry, Max… I shouldn't have spilled, but my other way wasn't working, and this seemed like the best way of getting you to open up."

The fuck, Kate?

"Frank Bowers is your brother?"

"Yeah."

"Lives in an RV, has a tattoo on his neck Frank Bowers?"

"Yeah."

"Well," I say, "I didn't see that coming… Frank Bowers is your half-brother."

"You know him?"

I smile, remembering the nice text message that Frank sent me after we managed to smooth everything over. "Yeah, Kate. I know Frank."

"What's he like?"

How do you describe a man just as likely to shiv you as to defend you?

"He… He has a rough exterior. He likes people to think he's a road warrior, but he's a lot nicer once you get to know him. He loves his dog… Adores. He used to have a girlfriend, but it ended. He loved her. Oh. My. God, did he love her… Have you never met him?"

"I bought things from him. Nothing big, just enough to meet. Say hi."

"I saw a Katie in his ledger."

She smiles. "Must be me. I bet you saw a Stella in there too? Stella buys from him…" Her smile fades. "Her parents… They prefer to sell her ADHD medication than make sure she gets it. Sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this."

"It's fine, Kate," I say. "I know already. Her parents are bastards."

"Yeah… Listen, Max, I understand if you don't want to talk about Chloe Price. To be honest, I'm probably not the best person to talk to… I'm a mess myself at the moment."

"Don't talk like that, Kate. You're amazing. You've been a big help, and not just this time."

"Thank you, Max, but it still stands… I understand if you don't want to talk, but I can't let you sit in here alone. We can go out of here, get out of this room, and just walk. We don't have to talk tonight if you don't want to. We can just go back to the dorm, or into town. It's up to you, I'm here to support you."

Kate stands up and offers my hand and for the longest time I consider my options. I don't want to talk about Chloe, I know that Kate will think I've gone mad, or something, if I tell her the whole truth. But she is right. I know that I can't stay in here forever, I need to get out of this room that I have created.

I turn my head towards the ventilation shaft, where the butterfly had come from, and wait for a sign.

"Max?"

* * *

 **If you are affected by anything in this story, perhaps it reminded you of something that happened in real life or maybe the game itself hit you harshly, I'd ask you to please seek help. If not professional,** **then, at least, speak to a loved one. Stay cool, punks n hippies.**

 **In case you were wondering, the thing about Kate being Frank's half-sister is a headcanon. The thing about Stella coming from an abusive home is in the game - Stella says she "survived poverty and an abusive family" in the diner in Episode 5 - but I have embellished it a little bit.**

 **Happy Holidays,**

 **Surroundedbystars**


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